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A company that relies on only a few customers for most of its revenue entertains a risky proposition. By not diversifying much beyond those first few accounts, chances are good that if an account were to leave or file for bankruptcy, that company would be taken out, too.

Sales organizations often find themselves in a similar predicament, relying on a handful of their salespeople to drive revenue. If a top performer leaves, then business suffers — not just because of that individual's absence, but also because the company has failed to develop other sellers on the team. Quite simply, a reliance on a few — regardless of what that few is — limits a company's ability to expand and evolve.

While it might seem counterproductive, a company's best option is to encourage its top performers to excel but also allow those top sellers to pursue alternate opportunities by creating a support system that nurtures a steady stream of talent. This process inevitably leads to a company with greater depth and viability in the increasingly dynamic marketplace.

Great Sellers Can Be Born — and Made

Traditional wisdom suggests that great salespeople are born, not made. And top performers generally share common qualities: They're ambitious, hardworking, and on an upward trajectory. Thus, these individuals tend to draw focus away from other employees. But this tendency can lead the “chosen ones” to feel overworked and unfairly burdened with the task of keeping up their team’s numbers, as well as cause others to feel undervalued.

Essentially, the point of arrival for any company should be every seller being the best seller. And while this may seem idealistic, the whole discipline of sales enablement focuses on achieving this objective. In fact, salespeople are often most successful when allowed to play to their own strengths, which means providing the right mix of tools and training that helps an individual understand those strengths and cultivate them.

Because this training isn't a one-size-fits-all undertaking, and even though some individuals may be predisposed to selling, identifying the attributes that render successful quotas and then working with each salesperson to build those attributes can create more consistent and evenly distributed success.

3 Strategies for Implementing Sales Education

Ultimately, creating great salespeople isn't a cosmic undertaking. It's simply a matter of striking the right balance between training and individual development. How leaders go about empowering their sales teams will vary by person and organization, but these three strategies can set them on the right path to installing the most effective curriculum:

1. Look to and lean on your top performers. Your top performers excel within your organization, so studying what makes them tick and diving deeper into the systems, processes, and people they leverage to succeed helps you understand how to structure your current and future training techniques and elevate the rest of your sales force.

Most importantly, don't go at this training alone. While your top performers always have a lot on their plates and you may hesitate to ask them to take on additional duties, the institutional and industry knowledge they possess can only be understood and effectively relayed by them. Have them help you develop best practices in your training modules and make that available to the rest of your organization. You can even incentivize their input by offering them monetary or other rewards.

2. Nurture customer and sales intelligence. Though companies are hard-pressed to develop business strategies without data, salespeople need insights into their client base that go beyond data to provide actual account solutions. Getting your team in the same room together can help them develop strategies, challenge preconceived notions, and review past results. You’ll end up with a sales force that is not only collaborative, but one that can also more effectively solve customer problems.

Moreover, because the B2B sales cycle is arduous and it can take 18 months or longer to convert, salespeople need to wholly understand prospects and customers to keep them engaged. That's why leaders who foster strategic collaboration to nurture customer intelligence not only enhance the teams' knowledge about the industry, the market, and the competition, but also help them better understand the influencers, stakeholders, and decision makers within the company.

3. Play the long game with training. Onboarding new talent is never a quick fix. It takes years of training and experience to get salespeople to perform at their highest potential, so leaders must go beyond the basics and invest in their sales teams by continually developing and evolving their skill sets.

Take the technology corporation Oracle as an example: It uses a “Class Of” sales program in which new trainees are paired with experienced salespeople after nine months of training and lead generation. By having its salespeople work with “mentors” over a period of time to sharpen skills and learn the organization’s best practices, Oracle is able to render a more consistent and deeper sales process companywide.

It’s easy to get comfortable when a sales team is reaching its goals. But resting on laurels is never a good idea. Instead, companies that devote the time and effort into enhanced sales training and a work to construct more uniform system can continue to weather the variability of the marketplace and don't have to worry so much the next time a star seller departs.

About EyesOnSales

EyesOnSales is a passionate community of the industry's best sales experts and professionals. Founded in 2003, EyesOnSales is committed to advancing best practices in the sales and online marketing industry. EyesOnSales is an integral part of the Campaigner Email Marketing Thought Leadership Program.